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“Some of my best friends are black”

“Some of my best friends are black” is a phrase whites use to prove they are not racist. They also use it when they are about to say something racist: “Some of my best friends are black, but….” As if that gives them a green light to say any racist thing they want.

My first reaction is to doubt the quality of said friendships. But giving them the benefit of the doubt, it has become clear that black friendship has little effect on white racism:

A white Boston police officer said this in an email about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr, a black Harvard professor:

If I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC.

Later he said in his apology:

I have so many friends of every type of culture and race you can name and I am not a racist.

A white high school student who went to a whites-only prom did not think he was racist either:

I have as many black friends as I do white friends. We do everything else together. We hang out. We play sports together. We go to class together. I don’t think anybody at our school is racist.

A white commenter, the first I kicked off this blog, only called black commenters names, never white ones. To one black commenter he said:

That’s right. Go play on train tracks and get hit by a train. No one wants you alive.

But he did not think he was racist either. To prove it he said:

Oh and by the way, four of my best friends have been black… My brother is married to a black a girl, too. So you really have no argument kiddo.

If anything the black-best-friend argument shows that the speaker does not know much about racism and is blind to it.

I used to think that whites who marry black or live in black neighbourhoods were not all that racist. But even that is not true! While they do tend to have less stereotyped views of blacks, they still hold onto their sense of whiteness and the racist views used to defend it. They still see things from a self-serving white point of view.

Come to think of it, even blacks can be racist against blacks!

So having a black best friend proves little.

Racism in America is built partly on a separation of the races and the stereotypes that fill in the lack of first-hand experience. Like the sea monsters on the old maps of the Atlantic. A black best friend can help remove some of those sea monsters, but not if you think your friend “is not like other blacks”.

But more than stereotypes racism is also built on the need for whites to feel good about themselves living in an unequal society where blacks get screwed. Black friends, neighbours and lovers will not make that need go away.

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Ugh, that has forever been a pathetic excuse. And if anything, IMO, puts you in an even worse place than if you weren’t to have even used it.
Also, the site where you got the pic and text at the top is hee-larious.

In modern America, the alleged “victim” is always really the aggressor, and the alleged “aggressor” is always the true victim.Suddenly, with the glare of the national spotlight being turned on a small local story, it became clear that there was no “racial profiling” involved — other than by the black Harvard professor, who lorded his credentials and connections over a white working-class cop.

We wouldn’t have known about this case at all if the professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., hadn’t blast e-mailed the universe that he was harassed by racist cops. Gates thought it would be a feather in his cap, not realizing there are huge areas of the country where people don’t think it’s heroic to browbeat cops checking on you after you break into your own house, such as 99 percent of the country outside of Cambridge. Contrary to liberals’ ardent desire, Sgt. James Crowley was not on tape saying, “I know it’s his house, but let’s stick it to this uppity negro.” (Curiously, the tape of Gates’ call demanding to talk to the chief of police to “report” Crowley has been withheld. Some watchdog group has got to demand that tape.)

But what if Crowley hadn’t been a model policeman who taught diversity classes and once famously gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a black athlete?

What if the 911 caller had identified the suspected burglars as black, which it turns out she did not?

What if Crowley hadn’t been fully supported by other cops at the scene, one Hispanic and one black? (Liberals will say cops stick together, but I say liberals stick together.)

What if, at some point in his life, Crowley had been accused — falsely or not — of racism?

His life would be ruined. On MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Chris Matthews said that Gates did not say, “I’ll speak with your mama outside,” as stated in the police report.

“He didn’t say this,” Matthews asserted as fact. This invented fact allowed Matthews to accuse the cop of engaging in “projection” and to conjure Crowley’s psychological state, saying, this is “what a white guy thought a black guy would say.”

And then they both had a laugh about the cop applying racist stereotypes to such an esteemed figure as Professor Gates, who apparently would NEVER use the phrase “your mama.”

First, unlike these aesthetes, I don’t consider “your mama” such an implausible expression for someone to use.

Second, Sgt. Crowley wrote his police report, including the “your mama” line, long before he, or anyone else, could have imagined the arrest was going to become nationwide, front-page news.

Third, there’s a video of Gates using the N-word all over the Internet, and in that short, three-minute video, Gates uses the phrase “your mama.”

The only contrary evidence is that Gates recently denied that he told the cop he’d “speak with your mama outside.” He also desperately wants to drop the subject.

The left’s last-ditch attempt to defend a powerful black man’s attack on a powerless white man is to say the arrest was improper. In Time magazine, Lawrence O’Donnell factually announced, “Yelling does not meet the definition of disorderly conduct in Massachusetts.”

You can argue the facts in court, but there’s no question that the police report described the misdemeanor offense of “disorderly conduct” under Massachusetts law, which includes engaging in “tumultuous behavior” in “any neighborhood,” thereby causing public “inconvenience, annoyance or alarm.”

As everyone who’s read the police report knows, Gates is described as going on an extended tirade against the officer, calling him a racist, saying the officer didn’t know who he was messing with, acting irrationally, following the officer outside to continue haranguing him, and engaging in “tumultuous behavior” in and outside his house, drawing a small crowd of alarmed onlookers and police.

Suppose a cop didn’t arrest a guy who was ranting and raving — in his own home — and, an hour later, the hothead assaults someone. Policeman: I was as surprised as anyone that he shot his girlfriend! Every liberal in the country would demand the cop’s head.

And by the way, try screaming at a judge that he’s a racist and see what happens. Why should police officers deserve less protection than judges? They’re in more danger.

The disorderly conduct charge was not dropped because it wasn’t a good arrest. It was dropped, according to Gates’ own lawyer, because of Gates’ connections.

Before liberals declare that this a case of racial profiling and move on, how about liberals produce one provable example of racial profiling that isn’t a hoax?

Thanks, Abagond for this timely posting. I’m so sick and tired of racists in general who say hateful things, then point out their best friend of another race or that they date outside of their race as if to prove that they are not racists. Give me a break!

Had we, as a society, a bit thicker skins, we would broadcast these lunacies far and wide, with an appropriate apology to the more sensitive among us, demonstrate a little Common Sense for our fellow man, and let the fringe element drown in the laughter and public ridicule generated by their own thinking or lack thereof. Along with the right to free speech comes the right to make a public fool of oneself; and like the naked, fools have little or no influence on society. We should “Never Underestimate the Power of Laughter.”

The reason whites are in huge denial of (even their own )racism, is because they’ve hardly ever, (if ever) experienced the white-on-black racism. They want to keep on practicing it, but get extremely offendedj/defensive whenever you call them a racist. Don’t ever take a white person’s word when they tell you, “Im not a racist.” Always observe their behaviors. They have very classic, major behaviors. The white- on- black racist events;

The James Byrd case
The Michael McDonald case
Martin Luther King case
Emmett Till
James Meredith case
Rosa Parks case
Untold numbers of lynchings in the (Southern,) country.
Whites throwing bottles at innocent pedestrians while riding by on buses.

I am white and live in Oakland. Our son went to a mostly white parochial school and just started at a mostly African American high school. He announced to me the other day in the car that he “ha[s] black friends” – as though to demonstrate something. I didn’t say anything then, but I had a hunch I would find some good writing from a young person that I could show him. Then, boom, there is your post.

Oakland is a great place to explore and study the boundaries and realities of contemporary American racism. One of the things I find here is that whites and blacks alike rarely deny they are racist. It is not an indictment on the individual; it is very hard to not be racist, and very easy to profess not to be racist. We live in a racist society. We can only exercise effort to do something about it.

What we can do is talk about it and work on it. We can make an effort make it a less racist place, because I believe there is consensus now that less racism is generally better for a society than more racism (although there are still those of all creeds and colors who prefer the simplicity of racism in their pedagogical toolbox, however a dominating influence it is on their philosophical outlook).

My first reaction is to doubt the quality of said friendships. But giving them the benefit of the doubt, it has become clear that black friendship has little effect on white racism

But maybe this is the key. Maybe one SHOULD doubt the quality of said friendships. Many whites do have black friends, but often these friendships are not deep (right?) and they don’t have effect on white racism.

Maybe true, deep friendships do?

Then again, it is proved that even the closest relationships with blacks (marriage, children) do not magically cure white racism, so I don’t know.

Still, there are whites who do change when they start dating a black person or when they marry them and have children with them. So while there’s no guarantee, having a true, honest and close relationship with a black person can help. Maybe it’s similar with friendships?

I know this post was some time ago, but I want to thank you for writing this, truely good work. When I came across it and it stood out as an issue that I expeirenced personally.

I’m biracial and was in a very abusive (mental/verbal/sexual) dating relationship in highschool with this guy Jody (caucasian). He did some really f-ed up racist things to me which I have discussed in length on EP http://www.experienceproject.com/uw.php?e=1237251.

Anyways he & I also had a mutual african american female friend. Which he would consistantly “playfully” tease by making fun/pulling of her hair (which he also did to me) and taking her hair tie which he always tried to get me in on…

When I confronted him about the racist things he would say say/do to me in private he always used his “firendship” with her and relationship with me as a defence, claiming I was just too sensitive…

The least of which was stressing to me how important it was for his future kids to have blue eyes like him, and how he was glad I carried the “right gene” because my mother has them.

He also used the “No offense but…” as a precurser to say any rude/racist thing he wanted often abusing freedom of speach.

I learned my lesson the hard way after being sexually assaulted by him my first semester in college.

But by the 2nd or third semester of college I finally & fully understood the history behind both the phenomonon in your post and the negitive/lustful/and abusive history racist white men have with black women. Giving me true insight.

It’s writers like you and people sharing their collective expirineces that will educate and hopefully prevent junk like this from happening to other people.

[…] elements in the figurative; the event horizon is that point where superficial relationships i.e. “some of my best friends are”- Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. Or in the church world numerous expressions of this sentiment are […]

“My wife is Asian, so I am not racist against Asians” has been touted as the Asian-American equivalent of “Some of my best friends are black” argument after ESPN’s headline comment on Jeremy Lin early last week. Looks like we are having yet another cliche entering our national discourse on racism (and other excuses for discrimination).

“My wife is Asian, so I am not racist against Asians” has been touted as the Asian-American equivalent of “Some of my best friends are black” argument after ESPN’s headline comment on Jeremy Lin early last week. Looks like we are having yet another cliche entering our national discourse on racism (and other excuses for discrimination).

You’re spot on. Personally, I’ve heard this from some white men married to Asian women which automatically makes me give them the side eye. By saying the whole “my wife is Asian” comment only magnifies the white husband’s racism towards Asians as well as other POC.

To me, if you have to begin your statement with a disclaimer like that, then you probably should be say what you are about to say. It’s probably something that you have no business saying to anyone, let alone the race you are about to criticize. I don’t go around saying “I have white friends so I’m not racist” and then follow it up with something hurtful towards whites. I realize that everyone has a degree of racism in them, but it’s something that we should be working on to eliminate day by day.

As a white person who was raised in an integrated neighborhood and pretty much matured into adolecence with black freinds and colleagues, have been married twice to black women and am raising one bi racial son , I definitly agree that is not a free pass to being non racist…working on not being racist , for a white person (white people did invent racism) is an everyday look at ones impulses and working on not letting them rise to affect a person’s thinking. Its a constant vigilance to look inside and try to understand the self and how one deals with these impulses out in the real world…

Its not just surpressing these impulses, its about working through them, and, trying to understand truth , versus the racist information that is bombarded on us all the time . Its seeing through accepted behaviors one sees around them all the time and making inner changes and evolving because you can start to see through the racism

Yeah, POC never claim knowing some white people (or having white friends) gives them knowledge about white people comparable with a white person’s knowledge about his/her people.
That has never happened!
/sarcasm mode off

It is a pathetic excuse. I am white and don’t have any close friends who are black and fine with that. In my own experience blacks tend to be very racist and incredibly lazy and untrustworthy. I see no reason to hang out with blacks just because they are black.

If blacks really wanted to eliminate racism, they would band together to get rid of Affirmative Action and other racially-based handouts.

Steve, can I be your friend? I am black and don’t have very many white friends. But you know what Steve, I am fine with that. In my own experience, whites are evil, perverted, incredibly duplicitous and have flat buttocks and are just plain hairy(I’ve bought stock in Neet)! I see no reason to hang out with whites just because they are white and hairy!

If whites really wanted to eliminate racism, they’d have to give up the ‘affirmative action’ also known as white privilege, and other racially based handouts benefiting whites. Can we still be friends Steve? I enjoy buffoonery and buffoons such as yourself!

He says a couple things:
* A recent Reuters poll shows that 40% of white Americans have zero nonwhite friends (and many that do might have Asian or Hispanic friends)
* only 20% of white Americans have five or more nonwhite friends (and they are not necessarily black)
* some people see black friends as things to be acquired to prove one is not racist
* Social bonds across the color line are critical to a truly integrated society
* What you really want to know is not “How many black friends do I have?” but rather, “Have I become the type of individual that a black person might choose to be friends with?” That’s a real question.

* White people are products of their own whitewashed, sanitized environment. Black people have been systematically excluded from white neighborhoods. Black stories rarely surface in popular culture. The history of race in high school textbooks has been boiled down to a handful of bedtime stories about Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks. Try to tap into the average white person’s feelings on race and you won’t necessarily find feelings of hate and antipathy. You just won’t find much of anything, no fully formed or well-considered thoughts about race of any kind. There’s nothing really there. Even white people who want black friends don’t know where to start.

* America’s lack of integration wouldn’t be such a big deal except for the fact that relationships and social networks are vital to economic advancement.

* Interracial friendships, social bonds across the color line, are a key factor in putting the sins of America’s past behind us. But it’s not something that’s accomplished by white people knowing lots of black people. It helps if white people know how to be better white people.

I used to think that whites who marry black or live in black neighbourhoods were not all that racist. But even that is not true!

I find this to be incredibly true. I’ve met very many white men who were married to or dating Asian women and these men would make racist jokes about Asians, usually mocking the way they speak (ching chong). All the while, their Asian partner would just smile and look on. There have been several occasions in my life where a white man would speak down to me condescendingly and try to lecture me, as if I were a child. And it would happen right in front of the white man’s Asian girlfriend, who would just smile and look on. This came from white men in my own family, complete strangers, or even Asiaphiles frequenting the Asian Art Museum. From this, I gather that most white men, even the ones married to or dating Asian women, think they are better than Asian men and do not respect Asian culture or people. Their Asian female partners only serve to validate their white male ego and sense of superiority over Asian men. This is also a reason why these same white men, who supposedly are so open-minded because they date Asian women, are disgusted by and disapprove of Asian men dating/marrying white women. For many of them, Asian women are just their racist/sexist fantasy (submissive China Doll stereotype), hence the disrespectful way they treat me and other Asian men.

I’m guilty of this one big time I drag my half siblings into it all the time in sorry I will stop. ( is because what white people are taught as children that if you love somebody of color or come from a mixed upbringing then its proof your one of the good guys) so we repeat that crap over and over becuse we are to ignorant to see that we were taught bullcrap.

I’m white & just heard the most stupid comment by another white. I said that’s not fair to say that about a group of people. That’s like saying all white southern men are racist & beats their wives. Then she said I have a best friend who is…. I looked up the sentence & came across this article. I knew someone had addressed it because that is the first sentence I hear when I try to correct a racist comment from a true racist. These people are in total denial or they don’t desire to ever change. I truly feel it’s impossible to not have some wrong precepts about something or someone. I don’t see any of us not being prejudice in some form about one thing or another. The real world floods you with negative and then the words penetrate in our brains. To be fair & open is something we all should stay on top by monitoring our thoughts or actions. I’ve have been corrected by friends of different nationalities & was grateful. Either it was wrong or I didn’t know it was offensive. Sometimes, I feel they were being too sensitive, as well. Other times, they translate what I said into something I never considered and would not let me explain. The bottom line if you walk away upset; they haven’t been given the knowledge of how stupid they sound. It’s up to them to learn or accept it.

You mean that they were sensitive to the point of being ridiculous? You gave them a chance to explain why they felt sensitive and you were not satisfied with it? How can you tell if someone is TOO sensitive?

[…] elements in the figurative; the Event Horizon is that point where superficial relationships i.e. “some of my best friends are”- Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. Or in the church world numerous expressions of this sentiment are […]

I think if you are white and have black friends that are true friends it can help. You go places with friends. You dialogue with them. You often will notice racism when your with your friends and it offends you for them. Friendship can be a start in overcoming racism.

I think having “black friends” and especially spouses may not “cure racism”, but it definitely creates a moral obligation on the part of the white person to root out their own racism. Racism is a negative, therefore unfriendly, action and therefore if one wants to make friends one must work to reduce and eliminate that action from one’s behavior. Otherwise it’s not only not fair to black people (or other racially-oppressed group) in general, but not fair to the friends specifically, and the friendships are not true, or are corrupt. With spouses the concerns are even more serious since that’s a stronger kind of relationship than just friendship and just treatment of the partners is essential. And even if the white person says “but [friend or spouse] is ‘not like other black people'” or some excuse but treats other black people wrongly, then besides the wrong of that in itself it indirectly mistreats the friend(s) or spouse by mistreating the group to which they/him/her belong.

I think having “black friends” and especially spouses may not “cure racism”, but it definitely creates a moral obligation on the part of the white person to root out their own racism.

Can you explain this further, because I am not sure that I understand.

Are you saying that having black friends (or spouses) creates a moral obligation?
Do you mean that otherwise, there is no moral obligation?

Anyhow, if there is such an “obligation”, I haven’t really seen it. I have never witnessed any white person trying to “root out their racism” by being married to (much less being friends with) any non-white person. If they feel any obligation, it is due to other causes.

Can you explain this further, because I am not sure that I understand.

Are you saying that having black friends (or spouses) creates a moral obligation?
Do you mean that otherwise, there is no moral obligation?

Ah — yes, you’re right, there is an obligation anyways. Perhaps “creates even more of an obligation” would be a better way to say it.

Anyhow, if there is such an “obligation”, I haven’t really seen it. I have never witnessed any white person trying to “root out their racism” by being married to (much less being friends with) any non-white person. If they feel any obligation, it is due to other causes.

Didn’t say anything about anyone actually recognizing the obligation, just that I think that it does create additional obligation and even more reason (if there wasn’t enough already) to “root out one’s racism”, that is, that in my “moral theory” it creates such an obligation.

I have white people obnoxiously talk really loudly about PoC in their families around me. They think that if I hear these things I’ll want to be friends with them. I’ve also had a cashier I don’t even know start up a conversation with me all with the aim of showing me pics of her baby nephew “who doesn’t even look half white. Isn’t he cute?” All the while I’m feeling used and looking to escape the interaction ASAP.

Believe me I know that white people don’t know how to act around people of color, that’s what I was saying to myself to keep calm when this white dance teacher recently said, “[My full name that rhymes with], Speedy Gonzalez!” in front of the whole class.

This confuses me a little. And yes im white. A little too white if you ask me.. lol. If all of this is true and correct, which it probably is in a sort of nit-picky kind of way. What name do you give to people who dislike people who are not the same ethnic background as they are, the real asshole ones who call black people offensive names and openly try to attack them on their skin color or cultural background? The ones who bash black people or get together in big hate groups like the KKK? Thats who I was brought up to believe were deserving of the label ‘racist’.
Most white people (and I mean 99.9%) are often very welcomming and friendly to the diverse spectrum of human race and do attempt to mix without hesitation. I’m sorry if i have offended you. That does seem quite easy to do. But being born in Australia, raised to treat everyone equally and fairly; including each person and showing interest in their cultures and traditions. It doesn’t sit to well with me that people who are so worried about being called racist, that they have to mention they have black friends or whatever to bring up a topic or fact about the difference of their race to another, are still ending up being called ‘racist’.
There is racist and there is racist ?
Or is there a name for the people who are actually mean/racist that I dont know about?

“…being born in Australia, raised to treat everyone equally and fairly; including each person and showing interest in their cultures and traditions.”

Hmmm. How “equal and fair” is the Australian history of murdering the indigenous people in large numbers and driving the survivors into the desert interior? Is that the Australian way of “showing interest in [Aboriginal] cultures and traditions”?

I wonder if Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke thinks that it is appropriate to address white Americans descendant of 19th century immigrants from Ireland or Germany or Sweden in Irish Gaelic or German or Swedish.

This thing about having friends that somehow makes you tolerant and inclusive.